Colour guide for Federal Infantry

As mentioned earlier, I want these units look good but be turned around very quickly. Up close they don't look too good but stand up well from a distance.

The uniform is Foundry's 'French Blue' A, highlighted with 'French Blue' B.

The belts and forage bag are the black undercoat.

The trousers are Foundry's 'Sky Blue' A and B with the odd variant.

Muskets are Foundry's 'musket brown' B and ink washed with brown ink.

Although I painted the highlights on the dark blue tunic the trousers I just washed with brown Ink. This wash was used on just about everything including the blue canteens and musket.

The faces and hands were painted with Foundry 'Flesh B' then given a brown wash with Citadel Inks. Very straight forward and very quick and easy.

The flags are from GMB. I like my flags to be quite dirty and hole ridden but haven't got the heart to butcher these new ones. I might make the exception when the novelty wears off.

New bases and a nice new tight formation. Very firing line. I have tried to give the impression of the chaos of battle by making some of the bases irregular. This is done by adding the odd man and varying the number of figures on a base. Also wounded characters add to the atmosphere of the firing line in action.

A few little touches like giving the odd man stubble really helps bring the figures to life. I just need to remember to do this before I do the Ink washes next time. lots of dry brushed mud up the trousers helps with the campaign look.

Rebasing the Union

The old and the new. 40mm bases replace the larger 60mm ones.

" Where's everyone going Lou?"

I first based the unit on large 60x40mm bases as I hoped to get my character into each one. However, I soon realised that these big bases would complicate things slightly of the games board and a firing line would be huge. After much debate I made the hard but right decision to rebase them onto smaller 40x40mm bases. These are easier to arrange in formations and I prefer the tightly packed ranks more. It's worth ironing out all these annoying problems at the beginning so the rest of the army is a breeze.

"look sharp boys the eyes of your General are upon you today!"

Yanky Doodle went to town riding on a donkey.

Figures from Renegade.

Rough and ready Federal troops line up ready to embark on their movement bases. I want to get through quite a few of these, so I'm experimenting with quick, time saving ways of painting them.

This whole unit (32 I think) were painted all at the same time, I haven't done this for many years, but the nature of the simple uniform lends itself to it nicely.

I also made it more interesting for myself by trying out some new painting techniques. It's an old method but one I've never really used, undercoating in black and leaving enough showing to act as a shade colour. Leaving black around eyes and cuffs and collars etc is something I have read a lot about but never tried. I used to just block colour on and then shade with black ink washes.

Well I tried it and quite enjoyed it. I actually took tips from the Foundry paint guide which was interesting. Of course I cut corners to speed things up and used brown Ink washes on the trousers etc. I'll go through colours used later

I want my regiments to be quite large, so I'm painting them in units of 27 to 32 men, with a few wounded scattered around. I want the bases to be quite characterful like little dioramas.

Naps at Colours 2011.

Life Guards charge home.

The glory of the Napoleonic age is brought to life in this huge 28mm game. Very inspiring stuff.

15mm ACW (Colours 2011)

Great, I can see my favourites...the 14th NY Volunteers with their flashy red trousers.

I started off with 15mm ACW many years ago at the age of 15. So seeing this game really brought back some old memories (although my games never looked this good back then).

I do prefer the added detail you get with 28mm these days but these big divisional battles do look good.

ZULU'S Thousands of 'em (Colours 2011)

Hosting a Zulu 1:1 man ratio game...crazy I hear you cry, well not anymore, check it out.

There's many hours of hard work gone into this massive set up and I have to say It did steal the show slightly. Very dedicated stuff.

Colours 2011

These amazing shots were taken at this years Colours. It was a long drive to get there but turned out to be worth it. I did come away with some fantastic hedgerows as well which was a bonus.

My girlfriend was very impressed with all the detail of these 1940's houses and was even inspired to think about making some.

Refererence of painting 162: The 95th Rifles.

First into battle and the last to leave...the 95th.

These pictures were taken at Kelmarsh Hall Living History Day 2011. It's worth mentioning that all the re-en actors here do the two days for free just for the love of the thing and at the same time teach so much to the general public. Hats off to them I say.

It's great to get up close and see the actual equipment being used and hearing the weapons going off etc. Great stuff.

Colour Reference: 95th Rifles.

95th Rifle colour Reference.

Many thanks to these very kind chap who cheerfully chatted to us for at least an hour. It was nice to see the uniform up close and study the equipment too.

The Baker rifle with it's classic sword bayonet.

Through the Paint Hole; 95th Rifles

Hello, and welcome to another 'Through the Paint Hole', this week in the spot light are the famous 95th Rifles.

Their dark rifle green uniforms and black facings gave these men the nick name of the 'sweeps' on the battlefield. They are still some of the most popular British troops of the Napoleonic wars, thanks to many written accounts and a little help from Sean Bean.

Kettle, pot, black I would say wouldn't you...

I haven't got around to painting my 95th quite yet but by looking at this reference, I would probably go for a bottle green washed with black ink and then highlighted with bottle green again. Anyway that's enough from me lets get on with the show...So join me, as we go throoouuughhhh the Paint hole...YAAAAAYYYY

VIKINGS!

Shieldwall!

Push on Boys!

Secundus revisits the Civil War after eight years away, read all about it.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

This picture was inspired by the true story of a fellow gamer and blogger that I read today. I have to say I do think about this scenario at least once a week and shiver.

Rebasing the Boyz